


More Substance Than Semblance

by Sara Generis (kanadka)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: (but not of any of the main characters), Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, Military Science Fiction, Psychological Horror, Space Death, with a few cameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 13:43:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15244671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanadka/pseuds/Sara%20Generis
Summary: Korvettenkapitän Beilschmidt has been selected for a very special mission indeed. If only he had known anything about it, or even that he was selected, before it became physically impossible for him to turn it down. But, needs must!





	More Substance Than Semblance

**Author's Note:**

> Written for last year's PrUK week (2017) on tumblr for the prompt "sword"; took awhile to get it up here tho. I love military sci fi and this is very self-indulgent.

They were doing nothing but following mission protocol, within some operating definition of protocol. The IMH Luise-Amalie - a naval scientific research vessel on special mission, because it has armaments despite being a research vessel - received the mayday signal logged locally at 04:47, but the petty officer staffing the communications was having issues trying to get it to respond with name or callsign or even prefixes, and the signals technicians were registering a designation OSV - offshore supply vessel, superluminal class.

Of course, the problem was that the IMH Luise-Amalie was operating under a different name, callsign, and prefix sets herself. Armed with the latest in Prussian developments in stealth technology, her armaments could not be seen or detected, inside or out. She flew as Transport Vessel Melpomene, associate to the East Galactic Imperial Shipping Company, and nothing more than that. Her secrets were known only to the senior officers, like Korvettenkapitän Beilschmidt - who was marching through the halls of the ship on his way to Communications.

“Are they talking?” he asked over the radio.

“No, Herr Kap'tän,” replied Bröske, the petty officer staffing the frequencies. “Well, that is, they’re talking, but not giving us what we want.”

“And what can you tell of them, from what they say?” Beilschmidt reached Communications. The salute was called, the subofficers and personnel stood to receive, and a short nod from Beilschmidt made them sit again.

Bröske, now in person, was a short dark haired fellow with dimples. “They’re English, Herr Kap'tän. I can’t hardly make heads or tails of it. I know you speak it well enough. And I wasn’t sure of protocol, given that… well, it’s a mayday. But they’re English. Do we help them or not?”

Of course they help them, this standoff war between empires be damned. “Give me the frequency transform of the recording,” said Beilschmidt to Bröske. A few keystrokes and it displayed on the flatscreen. This Beilschmidt scanned quickly, and didn’t find what he had expected to: the high-pitched sonar trace of a decompressing superluminal drive. This was good news, it meant they could approach without danger, and the ship obviously wasn’t doing anything funny. The easiest way to get rid of evidence would be to attract an enemy and then detonate it, and the English had shown a nasty precedent of that in recent years.

But then, if they had nothing to hide, why wouldn’t they respond with their callsign and allegiance?

Something seemed wrong about it. But it was nevertheless a mayday and the people were responding to them. Beilschmidt keyed into the frequency. Blast noises, sirens, and such. English speech, badly slurred.

“Okay,” said Beilschmidt, “we need to get them to get to the preservation pods, and -”

“They won’t do that,” argued Bröske, “I couldn’t make too much out but they’re talking of staying? They said something about a containment chamber.”

“Oh for god’s -” Beilschmidt grabbed the controls and adjusted the microphone on his headset. “Yes hi, Melpomene, Unknown Vessel, that containment chamber of yours, can it sustain you?”

“Y-yes, Melpomene! Melpomene.” The voice was middle-aged and seemed delighted to speak to someone who could understand them well. “W-we, yes. F-for, uh… approximately ten minutes.”

Beilschmidt checked their position. “We are farther than ten minutes away by our current course. If it is at all possible that you can get those who are not required to stay in the chamber to get to the pods, I am ordering you to do so -”

“Ordering? By whose order? You’re a transport vessel -”

Blast. Beilschmidt’s big mouth nearly got him in trouble again. “I’m in charge on this transport vessel,” he lied, “and I’ve seen this before. You’re safer in those pods, provided they’re up to safety standards, and they have beacons that we can easily come and find you and pick you up. Your own vessel is flying dark.”

“Weellll… we could help, if, uh, if we could get - to the drive core -”

“ _NO_ ,” shouted Beilschmidt, “do  _not_  touch the drive core, do you understand me?”

“Wwe know what we’re doing - ! It’s immmpossible to decompress it, you see -”

“Daddy, it hurts, I’m scared,” Beilschmidt overheard, and his blood ran cold.

“I am certain you have no idea what you’re doing. You are to stay away from the drive core -” he sighed. “Look. You’re fixated on that containment chamber, I understand that. I don’t ask what’s in it. But if you want to stay there then do it prudently. Take all the equipment you can, get people in suits. Get the children in life pods, do you understand me?”

“Th-there’s nnno children here.”

“You’re lying to me, I just heard one.”

“But, we’re… under weight regulations … if we’re too top-heavy we’ll list to one side, and that could compromise the gyroscopic instruments on the - on the paaaayload - can’t guarantee yyyou’ll arrive in time to ssstop such a thing -”

“Do you want to survive or don’t you? This isn’t up for debate or argument! Unknown Vessel, you are to get your people safe. Is that clear?”

“None of it… matters,” said the voice quietly. “None of it matters if we don’t secure the payload. I - th-thank you, Melpomene. We’ll take it from here.”

The unknown vessel could not be hailed again.

“Get closer,” instructed Beilschmidt. “I want you to fire over the ship, over the hull. Then target the mainstay shield. Bring it down if you can. Bröske - print me a transcript of that. Squad group Kappa, suit up.”

“Herr Kap'tän,” protested a Kadett from group Kappa, “we can’t suit up until the Herr Kapitän zum Raum says so.”

“I know, you’re suiting up in advance, because I want you ready to go.” Beilschmidt grabbed the transcript off the print press. “I’m off to see him now. I will meet you at HVC docking bay three in ten minutes.”

–

“Herr Kap'tän,” he said with a short salute, to the Kapitän zum Raum, “I hate to bother you so early, but we have a mayday signal registered by an unknown vessel. They wouldn’t answer questions about allegiances, nor about -”

“Then we don’t help them,” said von Schaar. “They have to follow mayday protocol. We can’t trust them otherwise. They could be the Tsar’s boys.”

“Well … the accent wasn’t -”

“He’s got all kinds on his payroll.”

Beilschmidt protested, “It was an English accent.”

“And Operation Tagetes last year confirmed they have an agent in the United Empire’s upper echelon goverment. We can no longer fully trust the English the way we once did, if in fact we ever have in our shared history.”

Oh. Well. This was news to Beilschmidt. Still he pressed on. “If you would, Herr, I have the transcript,” he said, and presented the paper.

The Kapitän zum Raum eyed him. “You’re being very insistent about this, Beilschmidt.” Nevertheless he read it over. “It’s very suspect. We have to think about our cover.”

“I am thinking about our cover. It’s not befitting it if it gets out that a transport vessel refused a mayday call. There’s no one else in the area.”

Von Schaar beamed. “Well! You said it yourself. There’s no one else in the area. No one to know. Scrub the records, Beilschmidt.”

“Herr- there’s - people there! I just talked to them, human people -”

“Voices,” said von Schaar. “You heard voices. We all hear voices this far out in space. It was a glitch, and nothing more, and that’s the end of it. And that’s an order. Do you understand, Korvettenkapitän?”

Beilschmidt stared straight ahead, his vision fixed upon the wall, sure that the muscles in his jaw belied his extreme discomfort, and saluted. “I understand the order, Herr Kapitän zum Raum.”

“Then execute it,” said von Schaar.

“Herr Kap'tän,” said Beilschmidt. He bowed and pivoted, then exited the Kapitän zum Raum’s quarters.

As Beilschmidt made his way back to HVC docking bay three he thought, I’m not executing shit.

–

No doubt von Scheer would find out, when he woke up for Shift One at 0600 hours, that a shuttle had ejected from the Melpomene for life-search, because Beilschmidt was nothing if not a stickler for rules, even when he was breaking them, and logged the activity accordingly. Squad group Kappa, however, remained with him, since Beilschmidt had neglected to tell them of the Kapitän zum Raum’s decision. Certainly they could be court-martialled too, but none of them being senior officers unlike Beilschmidt meant it would be more difficult. Beilschmidt would take the fall.

They found a lot of people hanging around the debris as they flew close enough to docked. A further few of them inside the ship itself. About three hundred inside the main compartment. It must have been the containment chamber the fellow on the mayday had mentioned, because all of the ship’s staff and crew had gathered there. There was a hole somewhere, though Beilschmidt could not see it, but it must have been there because according to Kadett Sukkau’s readings, the compartment was mostly depressurised and de-oxygenated. Only three people were alive, and at that, only barely. It was difficult to tell for how long they had been without oxygen in this environment. Still Beilschmidt gestured with his hand - tanks and masks, put them there, do it now. The rest of the bodies were slack and deadweight as they floated by, grinning, shrivelled, and wrinkled. Dead. One of them was an older man of about fifty, slumped over the radio comms.

“Hypoxia,” said Beilschmidt.

“Good way to go, Herr Kap'tän,” said one of the Kadetts, Enss probably.

“Horrifying way to go,” Beilschmidt replied. “You feel so great you assist in your own death.” The man at the comms had a blissful look on his face. “You’re not at home when you go. I’d want to know about it.”

They continued exploring. There didn’t seem to be anything of interest in the containment chamber, but nobody was in the centre of the room, and that felt a bit strange. They had all gathered outside on the outer rim. It was, granted, a large room, the size of a gymnasium, with partitions and cells and pathways and whatnot, two levels, one encased in glass, judging from the frames and the scattered shards. Inside were controls. This would be then the main control room. Beilschmidt recognised some of the gear that it was outfitted with.

“Herr Kap'tän, this looks…” Enss trailed off.

“It is,” said Beilschmidt. “It looks military because it is military.”

What were kids doing on a military vessel of this kind? A British military vessel, superluminal velocity. Beilschmidt knew the rules as well as any of them and they had all signed the alliance agreement. Whether the United Empire and Prussia saw eye to eye on most things, they both agreed people under the age of 13 were not to be exposed to the incident radiation of a superluminal drive core. Its levels were barely tolerable for a five-year mission for adults.

Maybe that was what had happened here. Been out too long, stranded, thought they could handle it but couldn’t. It was hard to say. Nothing seemed out of ordinary from the inside but the blast marks on the ship suggested that something must have happened.

And what was a British military vessel doing here? They couldn’t have had dispensation for this sector. It would have been all over the newspapers, high intelligence would have been briefed about it if Prussia’s long-time cold war rival had been granted a military presence in the neutral zone. Hell, that was precisely why their vessel was masquerading as a civilian transport.

Beilschmidt radioed in. “Any word on those lifepods?” he asked.

Lilienthal replied. “None are in use, Herr Kap'tän. Only checked about half so far.”

“Keep checking. Maybe that’s where the children are.” Maybe they took his advice. Beilschmidt could but hope.

They reached the epicentre of the room, where a large space had cleared, blackened radially as though an explosion had taken place, but it couldn’t have been anything recent. Beilschmidt knelt down and picked at the soot. It came off readily on his suit as he rubbed it. It couldn’t be soot. But then - what could this be…

“Herr Kap'tän, I’m picking up some very strange readings,” said Sukkau.

“Drive core?”

“Presently stable.”

“Offline?”

“No, there’s quiescent activity. But this doesn’t have to do with the drive core. It’s - there’s something beneath us.”

Alright. That made a sick amount of sense, to be honest. Beilschmidt got to his feet and backed away from the black stain.

As he retreated, a heavy clunk sounded, and the floor under the black stain depressed. “What’d you do, Herr Kap'tän?”

“Nothing - I didn’t touch anything.” Except the black not-soot. That couldn’t be it.

It was an elevator shaft, from the looks of it. The part of squad group Kappa with Beilschmidt, not elsewhere checking the lifepods, did not move, and they all waited in silence for the floor to finish lowering. There seemed to be another room down there. All dark.

Beilschmidt went first, gun lifted to his shoulder to use the tactical light, not expecting action. Sukkau, Enss and Wiebe followed.

There was nothing down there except for a large crate.

A giant room like this, a single large crate? No. There had to be something more to this.

“Readings?” asked Beilschmidt.

“None,” said Sukkau. “Or - well actually. Some. Low level. I would say passive auxiliary power.”

“It’s not hooked up to anything,” noticed Beilschmidt, walking around the crate.

“Crate’s metal, floor is metal. I thought at first, that’s what’s keeping it locked to the floor, but it could be inductive work. That’s my guess.”

Good guess. “Glad our boots are rubber soled.” Beilschmidt heaved a sigh. “Alright. We’re taking this. Someone go grab a jet-lifter.”

Enss returned with the equipment within minutes. “Update?” Beilschmidt asked.

“Drive core stability holding,” said Sukkau. “Ambient.”

“Okay. Initiate jet lift procedure on cargo.” Beilschmidt helped with attaching the ties of the jet lift’s main power unit to the crate at good locations with backups. Once in the air, it would be easy enough to move around by a single person.

As they flipped on the jet lifter motor to detach the crate from the floor, Beilschmidt heard something. A soft cry. A child’s cry. To the left and further in the black of the room.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

“No, Herr Kap'tän,” replied Enss.

“I’m going to investigate. Sukkau, with me, on my six.” So Sukkau abandoned the rest of the group and followed Beilschmidt forward. “Anything?”

“Readings pick up nothing,” said Sukkau. “Drive core also - wait -”

“What?”

“Heartbeats,” said Sukkau.

Beilschmidt kept on, pushing through the black until he came upon the outline of a door, at the edge of the room. He pushed, kicked at it, but it would not budge.

The noise alerted someone on the other side. “Daddy?” he heard. A little English voice. A few more little English voices. Beilschmidt’s heart skipped a beat.

“Lungs!” he shouted to Sukkau. “I got lungs here, get me tanks and masks.”

“What about the crate?” asked Sukkau.

“Let Enss take care of the crate, if it can’t be lifted with a jet lifter operated by one we’re leaving it behind. The rest of you are needed here. We need to get them out. Get me tanks, now.” Sukkau disappeared.

Beilschmidt tried knocking on the door and switched his external suit speakers on. “Can you hear me in there?”

“Daddy, is that you? I’m really scared. I don’t like this and the lights are off!”

“Honey, what’s your name?” Beilschmidt knew he had a very thick accent but as long as the children could understand him none of it would matter. “Can you hear me? Can you move away from the door?”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” wailed the child.

“Okay,” said Beilschmidt. “Can you hear me?”

Through sobs, he heard, “Yes.”

“Alright. What’s your name? My name is Gilbert.”

“That’s a dumb name,” the child sobbed.

It made him smile. “Okay. That’s okay. What’s your name?”

“Alice,” she said.

“And is there anybody else in there with you, Alice?”

“Yeah,” she said, sniffling. “There’s Jezza and Arlo and Ahmed but Ahmed is sleeping and Isobel and Zainab are sleeping too a-and there’s also Mollie but, b-but,” and she broke off into tears. Someone else behind the door began to cry.

They would have to move fast. “Alice, sweetheart, I need you to move away from the door. We are going to get you out of here, okay? You need to trust me right now.”

“Daddy told me to stay here,” Alice cried, “and then he’ll come and pick us up later.”

“Ye-es,” said Gilbert, “that’s why he sent me here.”

“He said he had to call for a may day,” said Alice.

The man on the comms, Beilschmidt realised. Lying to a child was so much worse than lying to squad group Kappa. “When people do that, it means they are calling for help,” he said, trying to explain patiently. “He called us for help, and now we’re here. He would want you to listen to us, because we’re here to help, okay?”

Sukkau returned with two others, Wiebe and Laskowski. “Tanks,” he said.

Beilschmidt counted them quickly. Only six. “That’s all?”

“That’s all we had,” Sukkau said. “We already used three on the guys upstairs.” And these were the backups for Kappa group plus Beilschmidt himself which means they only took nine tanks on the shuttle. If the Kapitän zum Raum had approved this, they could have had access to a lot more. Beilschmidt was suddenly, irrationally angry.

“Fine,” he said.

“Is it enough?” asked Sukkau.

“It will be,” he muttered. “Alright, Alice, I want you to help me right now, okay? Can you do that for me? I need you to tell me if anybody is close to the door.”

“Only me,” she said.

“Then I need you to move away a few paces from it, and take a big deep breath.” Alice began to sob again.

They made quick work of the door, applying conductive gel in a large, wide loop, enough to make a good-size door for a kid and large enough that they too could use it. Gilbert applied a suction handle and signalled to the others to be ready to move. “Breathe deep for me, okay, Alice? Huddle together, tell the others to do the same.”

“Okay,” she said, “but Arlo just fell asleep too, so I can’t tell him.”

A flash of light and the gel illuminated, sizzled, and glowed green. Beilschmidt tugged at the suction handle hard and the piece came off as one in his hand. He motioned Sukkau through with the tanks where they beelined for the kids.

A siren somewhere started blaring. “Herr Kap'tän!” he heard Enss on the radio. “We just picked up the crate, and readings on the drive core are spiking! It’s the drive core - the crate must have been linked to it - radiation levels are rising -”

“Get the crate and get everyone out of here immediately,” said Gilbert, “that’s an order. Back to the shuttle, post-haste. If anything happens, Fähnrich Lilienthal is in charge.”

“Confirmed, Herr Kap'tän,” said Lilienthal over the radio. “Lifepods empty. Moving back now.”

“Diercks to disengage as soon as he can from the wreck, we’ll have only about thirty seconds,” added Beilschmidt.

Then he pulled off his helmet and fastened it over the first kid he lay eyes on. Of course, it was Alice. Alice had wide green eyes and blond hair in pigtails and little child-size spectacles and was perhaps six years old. Beilschmidt could have cried.

Sukkau was not discriminate with the tanks, simply fastening masks to the first bodies he saw, so it was only after he had finished with all six that he turned back to see what had happened and found Alice, breathing normally inside Beilschmidt’s helmet, and Beilschmidt with his head exposed.

“Herr Kap'tän!” cried Sukkau.

Beilschmidt could not reply, conserving air, but waved him away up to the top floor of the wreck, where they immediately made for the exit, crate gone, kids gone, all gone, nothing but bodies, and somewhere around the sixteenth second on the way back to the shuttle, the darkness besieged his vision, first in spots and at the sides and then engulfed it completely …

–

And for a long time there was nothing, he knew nothing, and he knew only of the vast uncountable nothingness that had been, when a sharp pain in his head assaulted him very suddenly and a vision came to him, and suddenly he was awake again, conscious of the fact that before he had not been, and that before was a very wide field of starless space.

Memories –

                 | 

– he was in a large room, similar in size to the one on the ship, but beautiful, polished wood and panelled walls and molded ceilings painted myriad colours with chandeliers. In the middle of the room was a table, solid mahogany and intricately crafted, as large as the black soot explosion stain, around which many men and women were seated in high-backed chairs, carved meticulously with lavish images. One man alone remained standing, a man with short dirty blond hair, green eyes, and thick eyebrows. In the centre of the table lay the crate. The recognition, Beilschmidt could not describe, because it looked nothing like its former steel encasing, and instead was a polished gold, the size of a sarcophagus, in which lay a shiny longsword, partly embedded in granite.

Beilschmidt recognised none of these people, except a man with dark brown hair and eyes so deep blue they could be violet, that reminded him of a cousin of his. But this could not be him, for his cousin had been reported missing in action by the Austrian engagement eighteen months ago.

This beautiful ostentatious display could mean only one thing -

“Welcome to the Excalibur program,” said the standing man –

–

“– the Excalibur program which is intended to promote and ensure the safety and quality of life for generations to come regardless of the politics of the current day by dismantling and easing hostilities where they arise. I don’t think I need to remind you all about the escalating hostilities between the Prussian Regime and the United Empire, which culminated six years ago in the formal cessation of diplomatic relations. So I want a very warm welcome for our newest and possibly most valuable recruit, Korvettenkapitan Beilschmidt, of the Prussian Royal Military, currently staffing aboard her Majesty’s Auxiliary Ship the Luise-Amalie -”

Beilschmidt paled. “How can you know that?”

“We know everything in your mind,” said the man. “We are  _in_  your mind.”

This is a spy ring, he realises.

Oh god, has he been a sleeper agent all this time?–

–

“– just don’t think it’s right to claim that this is an organisation intended to help the galaxy at whole, because why is it staffed by Brits, attended by Brits, held in the British United Empire -”

“It’s just that we came up with the idea first! That’s all!”

Beilschmidt scoffed. “You don’t think we have something like this too?

"Well, do you? Where is it, then?”

“We don’t, actually, that’s why I left,” said his cousin, speaking up for the first time - because it was in fact his old cousin Edelstein, his cousin who was dishonourably discharged and later defected.

I don’t have anything to say to you, you faithless coward,” hissed Beilschmidt, and turned to storm out of the room.

“But -”

“Just let him go, Arthur, he’s always been this high strung and dramatic,“ added Edelstein, before the heavy tall door slams behind Beilschmidt.

–

“– and don’t you know that you are the first Prussian we’ve got?!”

Arthur, the man with the eyebrows, the head of them, would not let him go and followed him out.

“Isn’t there Edelstein,” grumbled Beilschmidt.

“Defected, and hardly loyal to your cause. The organisation is mostly neutrals, like the Tsar’s boys, and the rest are others from elsewhere in the United Empire, outside of England. Columbian America, the Texian sector, United territories of the Principality of Canada. It was a miracle we got Roderich but he really wasn’t enough and he had no choice but to defect. It’s true enough our senior staff is mostly British -”

“I knew it,” said Beilschmidt.

“We need you, Beilschmidt - Gilbert - can I call you Gilbert?”

“You absolutely can’t,” snapped Beilschmidt.

“Please, we need this to succeed - I don’t think you understand how badly - our governments are at an impasse they’ve never been at before, if we don’t start repairing these fractures hostilities will escalate and I’m not sure they can come down so easily! We nearly blew each other up last month. It would have eliminated tens of thousands of colony planets in Spiral Arm Epsilon. It would have been Prussian provocation, British retaliation, the death of many! We succeeded in calming things down, bringing them back to the sad normal they are. This is what we do!”

“Surely there’s other ways to go about it than backdoor shenanigans like this.”

“If there were, would I have sacrificed my people to get these crates out? To attract Prussian ships in the neutral zone?” Beilschmidt’s heart lurched into his throat. So this was all a game?! All those people dead for a ploy? “None of you have ever yet stopped! Do you know how many have died? For you!”

“I never asked for that,” said Beilschmidt, horrified.

“We need you,” urged Arthur. “ _I_  need you. And I’ll do anything to keep you in this program, I don’t think you know what lengths I’ll go to.”

He leaned in closer still, kissing distance, boring his gaze into Beilschmidt’s. “Anything,” he breathed.

“Yeah, that’s quite enough,” whispered Beilschmidt –

–

– But it wasn’t because Arthur kept up a close watch on him as he toured the facility - their facility - in a distant neutral zone, not in the United Empire, but not without its galactic location under severe scrutiny by both sides. Only the decorations were opulent British.

A hand on his elbow at all times. If this were a dream, it felt so real. Arthur’s grip was tight, warm, shaky, like he knew Beilschmidt would escape at the leastest opportunity. What nonsense; Beilschmidt was a senior officer in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy and he had not gotten there by being some highborn Juncker Piefke von Buxtehude the Third. He didn’t need a slackened leash to be able to capably escape. For the moment he was there because he needed to figure out what they’d done to him –

–

“– you know then that the chip in your head -”

“And how’d it get there?” Beilschmidt interrupted.

Arthur swallowed his bite of pork from the facility canteen. Beilschmidt could not understand, if this were all in his head, why he was imagining that Arthur was eating actual food, good food, tasty looking food, food that even Beilschmidt could taste (at least, his mind told him he was tasting it) and not the rumoured slop that British cuisine was famous for. “By now the crate has activated. We couldn’t be talking otherwise. We have it on a remote detonation.”

“So it’s a bomb?”

“It uses the same technology. How else do you think we could have a conversation like this? In real time, in each other’s minds. In each other’s languages. You know I don’t speak any German, right?” Beilschmidt must have looked perplexed because Arthur elaborated. “Oh yes, I’ve one too, and you’re in my mind as much as I’m in yours. If you concentrate you can taste the food I’m eating. I can do the same. Yours is quite good by the way, that’s a carrot you’ve just swallowed.”

“Slightly less impressive, given that you just saw me put it in my mouth,” Beilschmidt pointed out.

“This technology was developed off superluminal detonators for minefield debris, in fact, that’s what’s in the crate, if one of your people can decipher it. It was then honed for superluminal control of double agents.”

“Then this is a spy ring,” said Beilschmidt darkly. “And you’ve made a double agent of me, whether I like it or not.”

“If that’s really how you want to look at it. But I didn’t recruit you for the United Empire. If I had, why would I have told you that England had found out how to use superluminal detonators for this? You could go back to your people and tell them all how it works. It did what it did for all of us - the EMP causes a ship-wide outage, your sickbay doors locked down and in the darkness absent emergency lighting it implanted the ship in your temple. By now I’ll bet the net has spread to your frontal lobe.”

“You put something in my brain,” said Beilschmidt. “Without my say-so. You think I like the sound of that? I’m going to have it taken out the moment I wake up.”

“Then you won’t wake up,” sneered Arthur. “Or don’t you think there’s a detonator capability on that net inside you?”

Beilschmidt glared. “You English and your remote superluminal detonators,” he growled. “So if I don’t accept?”

“Well, you’re under no obligation,” Arthur said affably.

Some ultimatum! Enjoy your new brain, come help this cause, or  _die_.

“You would have died anyway,” admitted Arthur. “Forty seconds from the time you took off your helmet to the time you were back in a repressurised and oxygenated environment. There’s nothing left of you inside there, if we let you go.”

“If I have to go, I want to know about it,” Beilschmidt decided. “Fine, I agree.”

“That’s not convincing enough,” said Arthur –

–

“ – you don’t understand yet -”

“I understand it all perfectly!” yelled Beilschmidt. “Look, if our empires are at war, and given the technology that you have, I absolutely cannot allow it into to fall into the wrong hands! Suppose there’s some madman in your government who feels like threatening to wage something he can’t stop!” Why was there nothing to throw in Arthur’s office. A too-neat desk. Probably he never actually worked there.

“There are many of them there,” said Arthur. “But yours is no better.”

“It’s not a competition,” said Beilschmidt.

“Well, you’re damned wrong about that, because that’s exactly what this is,” replied Arthur. “A competition to see who has the biggest weapons.”

“Just because you have a weapon doesn’t mean you have to use it,” said Beilschmidt.

“Then you would help keep one side from causing a disaster war?”

Beilschmidt rolled his eyes. “That’s literally my job description.”

“And what if that side is yours?” added Arthur. “What of the orders you might receive?”

“I would stake my life on it,” said Beilschmidt, “whatever’s left of it. Nobody should start a war they can’t stop without destroying the galaxy we all live in. Nobody has that right.”

Arthur smiled. “That, I might believe –”

–

– Beilschmidt knocking on Arthur’s door late at night, admitted into his quarters. “Just one more thing that’s been bothering me.”

“What is it?” Arthur had a mug of black tea in his hand and didn’t look like he was preparing for bed anytime soon anyway. His quarters looked as ill-used as his office. A mirror hanging in a gilded wood frame, art on the walls of landscapes, portraits of people who look important.

“Did you put children on every ship you ever sent to the neutral zone when you went fishing for Prussians?” It sounded like a verbal attack. It was one.

Arthur grimaced. “I’m not proud of it,” he said. “For the good of the galaxy, some have to be sacrificed. Not everybody survives.”

“The adults on that ship knew what they were getting into,” said Beilschmidt, remembering the reservation in the voice of the man at the comms, hailing may day. “But the children did not, and that’s not right. They are real, aren’t they?” It struck him just then that nobody on Squad group Kappa seemed to hear their cries at first, except him. And Beilschmidt was the first to inspect the crate… is that when it happened, that they stuck him with this chip, to control him?

“Of course they were,” said Arthur.

Were? “We got them out - they’re still alive, aren’t they?”

Arthur grew quiet and remained silent for a very long moment. He did not look up until he had finished the mug of tea he held, and put it down on a shelf. Finally he said, “If I say no, will you still work with us?”

Little voices trapped in a ship they should never have been on in the first place. “I really don’t know,” said Beilschmidt flatly –

–

“–please don’t leave us,” said Arthur. “Don’t leave me.”

“You said you’d do anything,” said Beilschmidt –

–

“–do you not see me on my knees for you,” said Arthur, at his thigh. “Look at me. Look down at me.”

“I am looking,” said an astonished Beilschmidt.

“I am begging you,” he continued, as he opened Beilschmidt’s trousers. He pulled them down enough to expose him. Beilschmidt felt irritated to see he was already half-erect, but at least that made his cock look larger than it is, in front of his enemy, so there was that small mercy. “If this were something that we could have done alone, we would have. We wouldn’t have bothered making contact with the enemy. I’m not trying to get you to defect. In fact, I don’t want that at all. You are my enemy in this century, and maybe as far back as I can remember we ever were.”

“We weren’t always,” said Beilschmidt, whose history has been less rewritten than Arthur’s. He looked at Arthur’s mouth.

“I need you,” Arthur pants, mouthing wetly at the root of Beilschmidt’s cock, “I want you–”

–

–Arthur still on his knees, his thighs spread, his cock pressed hard against the confines of his trousers, Beilschmidt’s head tilted back on the wall, a sumptuous vision in decadent mirror hanging on Arthur’s wall -

The sensation assaulted him doubly, at once feeling the weight of prick on his tongue, the taste of it, and the heat of Arthur’s mouth, it was completely illogical, but it couldn’t be something his brain really all made up, could it? His nerves are on fire, that couldn’t be from nothing?

It’s just a construct, Arthur had said, created by the mind, to influence the reality of it, bending a thought towards real life, when all of this took place in their joined minds. Their bodies had never before touched but Arthur played his like an expert, and why shouldn’t he when he had access to all of Beilschmidt’s thoughts and could sense in a heartbeat where to lick, how to suck, what he liked best, how to work him, what made him feel like he’s on fire, what made him come like lightning –

–

“– then fine,” he said, at the end, of three days, at the round table. “I’ll work with you. I accept.”

“Thank you,” said Arthur, beatific.

“It’s not a favour to you,” added Beilschmidt. “But if I want our empire to keep yours in check, I start with holding you in check.”

“I wouldn’t dream of calling us allies,” said Arthur. “Perhaps not yet.”

“Perhaps never again,” replied Beilschmidt. “Keep your children off the superluminal drive vessels.”

“They’re my children, not yours,” said Arthur.

“Don’t make me regret this,” says Beilschmidt –  
  
---|---  
  
– memories of all kinds. He felt like his head had been remixed, living three days in an instant.

–

He opened his eyes. Back on the Luise-Amalie. There was a rotten throbbing pain in his head. “That’d be the chip, dear,” said Arthur’s voice.

There was nobody else in the room. He scanned left, right, then left again and Arthur had appeared. “They know you’re up,” he said, “they’ll be coming to take a look at you shortly.”

“They’ll find the chip,” said Beilschmidt.

“They won’t, it’s already dissolved,” said Arthur. “They would spot the net, though. Don’t let them do any medical imaging on you for the next three months.”

“Haven’t got a lot of choice in that,” said Beilschmidt.

“Well, put it to you this way, if they find the net we’re exposed and we’ll have to detonate it. It won’t be pretty for anybody on the ship. Including,” Arthur smiled, “your darling little rescues. Oh yes! You’ll be delighted to know that they’re alright - for now. They’ve all survived. You made quite the impression on young Alice.”

Beilschmidt growled, “And why couldn’t you tell me that earlier?”

“I needed to know I could have your support, even in the worst case scenarios,” explained Arthur. “There will be many of those.”

“This is a threat,” said Beilschmidt.

“Do you really want to take the chance? Now, Captain, try and take your cross-examination and subsequent court-martial well. You should be fine; after all, there are seven children you rescued, you successfully gave humanitarian aid without exposing your cover or anybody aboard this vessel. All you did was disobey orders, and you’ve already paid your own personal cost. I do have further orders if they discharge you, but I don’t think we’ll need them. I’d much rather they keep you on.”

“Yes, I’m sure I’m more useful to the enemy cause if I’m in the military,” retorted Beilschmidt.

“It’d be a lot harder for you to travel the galaxy to come and find me if you weren’t,” said Arthur. “You can tell them about the detonators, but as for Project Excalibur, I’ll send you coordinates. If you can make that leap of faith, you’ll do both our empires proud.”

“Just what I’ve always wanted,” said Beilschmidt. “Well, you do that. Send me your coordinates so I can come and punch your face.”

“Do something to my face, at any rate,” said Arthur. He sauntered over to the bed and, leaning over Gilbert, murmured, “I’ll let you imagine how good that’ll be in person.” Beilschmidt blushed bright red.

The spectre vanished from sight as the door slid open to admit the Käpitan zum Raum von Scheer as well as the Konteradmiral of the IMS Kronprinzessin fleet and two young Kadetten, but Beilschmidt could not say he felt quite alone.


End file.
